Australian fiction

Strangers at the Port by Lauren Aimee Curtis

Reviewed by Aurelia Orr

On a fictional Aeolian island in a volcanic archipelago, a community thrives off the bountiful vineyards that produce the sweetest wines in all the Mediterranean. Their ordinary lives are shaped by ritual and religion, and they are reminded of their…

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Perfect-ish by Jessica Seaborn

Reviewed by Lucie Dess

Prue’s life is far from perfect. She’s about to turn 30 and feels like an absolute failure. All around her, she sees people living their best lives while she’s having to crash at her brother’s after her fiancé breaks off…

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Thaw by Dennis Glover

Reviewed by Joe Murray

At the dawn of the 20th century, Antarctica was a place of peril, where explorers braved hypothermia, isolation and death in search of knowledge and fame, long before science and technology allowed us a more comfortable existence on the ice…

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Firelight: Stories by John Morrissey

Reviewed by Ellie Dean

John Morrissey’s debut collection of short stories is a beguiling, evocative delight. In it, he presents a series of visions that meld the absurd and mundane: a mysterious commonwealth celebrating their colonisation of the moon, the fraught efforts of a…

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Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville

Reviewed by Chris Gordon

We know Kate Grenville is one of Australia’s most acclaimed authors, and that she is an astute researcher. She is a writer who can fill in the gaps. If she has the facts, then she will shape them into something…

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The Scope of Permissibility by Zeynab Gamieldien

Reviewed by Jamisyn Gleeson

In her debut novel, Zeynab Gamieldien’s characters navigate exams, friendships, families and religion within the Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) at their Sydney university. Sara is an honest (albeit blunt) friend who is tired of explaining her religion and South African…

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On a Bright Hillside in Paradise by Annette Higgs

Reviewed by Elke Power

In her Penguin Literary Prize- winning debut novel, Annette Higgs does not shy away from the shameful colonial history of atrocities perpetrated against the First Nations peoples of lutruwita (Tasmania/Van Diemen’s Land). However, the tightly circumscribed focus of her novel…

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The Art of Breaking Ice by Rachael Mead

Reviewed by Joe Murray

Nel Law is many things: an ageing menopausal woman, a lonely homemaker, an artist – but what she always finds herself reduced to is the wife of famed polar explorer Phil Law, whose role as the director of Australia’s Antarctic…

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Why We Are Here by Briohny Doyle

Reviewed by Aurelia Orr

From the author of the Miles Franklin Award-longlisted Echolalia comes a brilliant new novel about grief, life during lockdown, and the overwhelming love of a dog.

Why We Are Here follows the story of BB as she moves to Balboa…

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Southern Aurora by Mark Brandi

Reviewed by Mark Rubbo

Jimmy likes to take his little brother Sam down to the railway cutting to watch the trains. If the time is right, they’ll see the silver cars of the Southern Aurora flash by; they’ll both get a thrill.

Sam goes…

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